The World Ends with You: Espoir de Vie
is a Pokémon and The World Ends with You Crossover fanfic by SpinnerNite.
Taking place after the Team Flare plot of Pokémon X and Y, the story focuses on Augustine Sycamore, who suddenly wakes up in front of the Lumiose Station. For some reason, no one seems to see or hear him and finds a strange black skull decorative pin on him that lets him read minds and a text message stating he must complete a mission or face Erasure.
However, his strange day became dangerous when several Froakie-like monsters start attacking him while witnessing several people disappeared in thin air. It even gets more complicated when he's forced to partnered up with a mysterious man and gained an ability to use supernatural abilities called Psychs.
At that point, he eventually learned that he's trapped in the Reapers' Game, where the only escape is to win or be erased from existence.
This work contains examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Augustine ends up in Neku's shoes as he found himself trapped in the Reapers' Game with no way out of Lumiose City and witnessing several people like him erased from existence by the Noise. It didn't make any better when he learned that he already died by the time the story started.
- Ascended Extra: In the games and anime, Augustine served more than a supporting character as the Pokemon Professor in his home game. Here, the entire story is focused on him trying to survive in the mysterious Reapers' Game.
- Deadly Game: Augustine is forced to play the Reapers' Game to not only avoid erasure from the Reapers, but he has to win so he can be resurrected.
- Dead to Begin With: The participants of the Reapers' Game are the ones that recently died. And that includes Augustine.
- Death by Adaptation: Augustine died right before the events of the story.
- Death of a Child: Turns out, recently deceased children are not exempt from the Reapers' Game as proven with Hayate and Kazuki participating in it, who are 17 and 11 respectively by the time of their deaths.
- Death Wail: A variation. Augustine does this when he learned that he already died.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Augustine, a normal man, along with the other players (some of them are Pokemon trainers) consider this due to them gaining an ability to use Psychs as part of the Reapers' Game.
- Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: Being set in the Pokemon universe, the Noise appearing in the story are depicted as corrupted versions of Pokemon.
- First-Episode Twist: Not exactly the first chapter, but Day 1 ends with Augustine learning that he was already dead prior to the events of the story.
- Foreshadowing:
- At the start of the story, Augustine seems to retain his memories on Day 1. Yet he then mentions he hasn't "decided his future" before his first Noise battle and there are some living people who seemed to react with pure distraught and horror at the news report reporting his death. This hints that he did lose his memories. More specifically, the memories related to his real job as a Pokemon Professor.
- Fountain of Youth: Starting on Day 2, Augustine and Sandre ended up as teenagers as part of the Game and it seems they are not the only ones affected as seen with Leo and Ronald.
- Gratuitous French: Being set in the Pokemon universe's version of Paris, most characters tend to pepper their speeches with French words, phrase, or a sentence.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Following the same formula as TWEWY, the days are split into 2-3 chapters, each being named from several French phrases or words.
- Invisible to Normals: The Players, Reapers, and the Noise are this to normal people.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The author assumed that you not only played the first half of TWEWY, but also the Pokémon X and Y regarding the events after Team Flare as it not only spoils that every player in the Reapers' Game are dead, but also revealing Lysandre as the Team Flare leader.
- Mr. Exposition: Sandre sometimes serves as this whenever he teaches Augustine how the Reapers' Game works.
- Outside-Context Problem: The Reapers' Game serves as this as it strips the Players of the Pokemon they owned and had to rely on Psychs they barely know how to use themselves to survive. Sure, there were Noise that they can summon and command like a normal Pokemon, but they have to cough up some of their stamina to do so. Not to mention, they seemed to be randomized based on the Player.
- Psychic Powers: During the Reapers' Game, Players are able to use Psychs including Mind Reading and Psychokinesis, but they are limited to 1 or 2 Psych Pins to use. Similar to Neku, Augustine can use more than 3 pins or Psychs. However, it seems that he can only use element-based Psychs at the moment.
- The Reveal: Along with Sandre's identity revealing to be the Team Flare leader, Lysandre, Dezz drops a big one on Day 3 that Augustine did lose some memories at Day 1, namely the ones connected to his real job as a Pokemon Professor.
- Shout-Out:
- Leo uses Jonathan Joestar's family secret technique against the Noise: RUN AWAY!
- Turns out Ronald is a fan of the Fairly Oddparents. He even spouts out one of the quotes from the show on Day 3.
- A famous fashion brand in Kalos is called Lotus Rouge.
- Summon Magic: Calling out the UG version of Pokemon acts as this as they have to rely more on Psychs during the Reapers' Game due to the Cast from Hit Points cost.
- Title Drop: Later, Augustine's Pact is named "Espoir de Vie" or in English, "Hope of Life", as a way to never lose hope to return to the RG.
- Wham Episode: Oh, there are lot more twists than the original game has.
- Day 1 reveals at the end that Augustine actually died at the start of the story.
- Day 2 ends with Augustine's strange device suddenly recharges from the fight and revealing a message from the Team Flare leader who seems to have an uncanny resemblance to Sandre.
- Day 3 gives us a huge one in the end with the reveal of Sandre's true identity and Augustine lost some of his memories related to his true job.
